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21/12/2007

US elections: convergence of social and big media coverage

The 2008 elections will be the first major test of the tentative convergence of social and big media coverage. As US elections in essence have become campaigns in the micro management of narratives, the potential impact of the social media component shouldn't be underestimated.

The New York Times is planning to begin running citizen videos about the US presidential primary elections on the paper's web site in the next couple of days. The videos will run on the Op-Ed section of the site until February 5, so-called 'Super Tuesday' when a large number of US states hold primary elections.

Meanwhile, ABC teamed up with Facebook and MTV will be launching a “Street Team” comprised of 51 young, amateur journalists from each state to cover the election. Members of the Street Team will begin appearing in January on a new mobile site as well as the existing MTV Mobile, ThinkMTV and other websites as well. The content will be a conglomerate of blog entries, videos, photos, podcasts, and animation. A middel of the road or 'pro-am' initiative is "Off the Bus".

Google created a gadget for the personalized homepage iGoogle tracking the elections. You can select the candidates you want to read about, and then toggle between YouTube video news, mainstream news via Google News, blog coverage, and a Google Maps tab. Part of the gadget data is coming from Slate.com, which also features a section on campaign ads analyzes.

Techpresident.com is doing good overall work covering "How the candidates are using the web, and how the web is using them", social media data/stats included.

06/02/2007

Mobile Podcasting – The Road Ahead

The cellular industry has repeatedly attempted to port popular consumer
services to the mobile environment. Despite the investment of billions
of dollars in data networks, spectrum, devices, and marketing
campaigns, very few services have ported successfully.

Yet
digital music and podcasting prove that users will go to great lengths
to mobilize entertainment, including actively connecting a media device
to a PC and transferring to it content downloaded from the internet.
But can podcasting become a cellular service enjoyed on handsets? Given
the prevalence of mobile phones, coupled with the ability to deliver
content directly to the handset without any user action required, the
mobile industry might be hard-pressed to explain a porting failure.
This post outlines a few of the critical issues that must be addressed
if mobile podcasting is to see even minimal mass-market penetration.

The manner in which mobile users discover and receive content will have
a huge impact on the nature of the service. There are two alternative
models: network-based solutions and client-based solutions.
Network-based solutions like WAP offer podcast menus on the Operator's
Portal. Users, locate the appropriate podcast, then initiate a
download.

WAP has failed to appeal to the mass-market user.
The click and wait, menu-intense experience of Mobile Internet has
proven unappealing. Furthermore, given the relatively large size of a
podcast file, adding a lengthy download wait to a cumbersome Portal
experience will kill the experience all together.

Podcasts can
also be streamed off the Portal. Here, however, in addition to the
cumbersome Portal-Pull issues, the user-experience becomes dependent on
consistent and sufficient data transmission during the stream. A user
listening to a podcast while commuting by train will frequently lose
coverage. Securing bandwidth in peak-hours or in congested areas is
very difficult. Thus streaming can not deliver an acceptable level of
service.

Whether downloaded or streamed, obtaining content via
pull assumes that a user will regularly poll for content. Not only does
the active user concept runs counter to the Podcast model of automatic
content delivery, but a compelling mobile experience must be simple and
automated. One must consider that the potential mass-market mobile user
is not as "early-adopted" oriented as a current podcast user. Thus, the
user-experience on mobile user must be as good, if not better than the
iPod experience for the mass-market to accept it.

Client
solutions reduce the amount of browsing and provide a more immediate,
user-friendly experience. The first type of solution involves a client
that displays a catalogue-list of available podcasts. The user scrolls
down the list and selects one, which initiating a content delivery
session. Content discovery is easier than in Network-based solutions,
as WAP browsing to the portal is avoided. However, real-time delivery
is required, which means consumption delays. Also, a consumption
decision must be made daily.

The second type of client
solution involves automatic, subscription based podcast delivery
without any user involvement, for example overnight. Fresh content is
available for immediate consumption with no network access required.

People
are clearly taking their entertainment with them. Will the mass-market,
which holds mobile phones rather than other media-devices, be willing
to adopt and pay for services which deliver personalized audio content
to them? One barrier might be the perception that podcasts are and
should be remain free. Whether users are willing to pay for podcasts on
their mobile will depend of factors such as easy of use, content
quality, and price. But it is quite likely that people will pay a small
premium in order to receive Tier 1 content.

One thing is
certain: the operator is keen to see the success of such
operator-provided services. First, from a revenue perspective,
operators subsidize the handsets, yet see no revenue when a user
transfers music to it from the PC. Second, should the mass-market adopt
iPod-like devices as their device of choice for media consumption, the
mobile handset will be marginalized and viewed only as a tool for
voice-calls. As these competing devices develop Skype-like internet
telephone functionality over WIFI, operators will lose voice as well.
It is thus imperative for the operator that the mobile phone claim a
stake as a media device.

Mobile podcasting, however, poses a
few challenges to the operator. First is the fact that mobile networks
are inefficient in terms of data transmission. Transmission rates are
slow and there is much less overall capacity. Thus, cost to the
operator of transmitting data is high. While a user might pay 20
Euro/month for unlimited internet on the PC, the same user might be
charged 1 Euro/MB for mobile data. As the average 30-40 minute PC-based
audio podcast approximately 15 MB, the operator can not justify
charging of a few Euros a month for a mobile podcast service, when a
single Pull-downloaded video clip can generate a Euro or two.

Mobile
podcasting can be made more efficient. First, content files can easily
be reduced in size by simple content transcoding. A 30 minute podcast
can be reduced to 1.5MB, without impacting sound quality. Furthermore,
the delivery frequency of a podcast service can be reduced. (Delivering
shorter podcasts is an option, but Tier 1 podcasters will not create
"mobile-versions" of their programs unless it makes economic sense).

Second,
the podcast files must be delivered during off-peak hours, ideally
overnight. During peak hours and in congested areas, the cost of data
delivery is at its highest. Delivery of large data files to a moderate
number of users during peak hours will chill operator enthusiasm.
Conversely, during off-peak hours, the network is empty, minimizing the
cost of data transmission. This requirement would appear to point to a
push service model, with scheduled off-peak delivery.

One final
issue is that of billing and revenue. Mobile users will only adopt
podcasting if the pricing structure is clear and reasonable. A
transparent monthly subscription fee for the service, without any
additional data charges, is mandatory. In terms of additional operator
revenue potential, one point worth noting is advertising. As audio and
video advertisements are easily included in podcasts, the potential for
generating advertising revenue is significant.

Now it remains to be seen whether attractive services are deployed and enjoyed.

Monte Silver

Monte Silver is Director of European Sales and Advanced Data Services at BamBoo Media Casting. They launched MediaToob, a mobile podcasting solution.